(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of cages which hold poultry for transport from poultry growing locations to poultry processing locations. This invention also relates to the field of unloading poultry from cages.
(2) Description of Related Art
The poultry food industry has sought to streamline and mechanize the growing, transport, and processing of poultry for the consumer. At each stage of the process, the emphasis has been on reducing human contact with the poultry and on increasing mechanization.
Heavy poultry birds are typically grown in rural locations in large enclosures specially designed for large numbers of birds. When the poultry birds are ready to be slaughtered and processed into food, specially designed equipment gathers the birds within the enclosures and moves them to cages on a transport vehicle. The birds are then transported within the cage on the transport vehicle to the processing factory. At the processing factory, the poultry birds are removed from the cages and hung by their legs on a conveyor system for slaughtering and processing. The birds are alive throughout this process.
The cages used to transport the poultry birds from the rural locations to the processing plant are typically open cages with one or more compartments accessed by a cage door that slides up. Some cages have two or more levels of compartments with each compartment being accessible by a single door. Some multi-level cages may be arranged with two side-by-side vertical columns of compartments within a single cage.
Once the birds reach the processing plant, it is necessary to take the birds out of the cage compartments and hang them on the processing plant's conveyor system. The birds usually do not exit the cage compartments willingly and it is usually necessary for persons to open each cage compartment's door and grasp each bird and pull it out of the cage compartment. Poultry birds will sometimes resist this process and may even peck at the persons' arms and hands. It is an altogether slow, difficult, and labor-intensive process. It is difficult for processing plants to find people who are willing to do this job. Even with good workers, it can take several minutes to remove all the poultry birds from a multi-compartment cage. Further, when cages have multiple levels, the workers must stoop, down in uncomfortable positions to reach birds in the lower levels and may have to stand on a stool or ladder to reach birds in the upper levels.
It would be desirable to provide a cage that facilitates the rapid removal of poultry birds from within the cage. Yet, even though the industry is decades old, no economical solution has been found to unload live or stunned heavy birds.